Africa’s Political Environment and the Challenge of Underdevelopment

Abstract

Over the last sixty years the principal agency of underdevelopment of Africa has been the international capitalist countries. Before the advent of the Europeans in Africa, the continent had robust economic, social and political structures because it was endowed with numerous inexhaustible both human and natural resources. These were seriously disrupted by the colonialists in the course of creating wealth for themselves through the means of exploitation. It is imperative to assert that the debate on the unprecedented political decay created by African political elite (the agents of colonialists) in power has dominated the political discourse among scholars from the region. Africa’s environment has been shrouded in political violence, poor electoral system, incessant military intervention, ethnic/tribal segregation and unity in diversity, rising political cleavages resulting from multi-party system, bad political culture, corruption, alienation of African women from politics, greed and sit-back leadership, dictatorship, foreign influence, religious diversity, administrative mediocrity, secession threat resulting from marginalization of minority, and bad governance. The political instability in the sub-Saharan African States has been the function of political environment, manifesting itself as a chronic symptom of the underdevelopment of political life within the imperialist context. Political environment in the sub-Saharan African States can be explained based on the legacy of political authoritarianism inherited from the colonialists, a factor which resulted to political conflicts, instability and dictatorship. The political authoritarianism of the colonial states is a direct source of the authoritarianism that has plagued Africa. Colonialism created and shaped identities and cleavages in dysfunctional way as political centralization involves one clan dominating another. The conjunctivitis created by the underdevelopment trajectories has called for in-depth investigation into Africa’s underdevelopment in the light of political advancement of the ‘Asian Tiger’ so that efforts towards experiencing political environment with high propensity of political advancement in the sub-Saharan African States could be attained. The study intended to apply the theories of modernisation and dependency to explain Africa’s underdevelopment. Qualitative method will be utilised in the study.